Dry Casks Take the Heat
Wednesday, July 18, 2018 - 11:40
in Physics & Chemistry
Sandia National Laboratories researchers have built a scaled test assembly that mimics a dry cask storage container for spent nuclear fuel to study how fuel temperatures change during storage and how the fuel's peak temperatures affect the integrity of the metal cladding surrounding the spent fuel. Regulators could use the data to help verify computer simulations that show whether nuclear power utilities are complying with regulations that specify how much heat a dry cask can safely handle.